The View from Destruction: One Island, Twelve Thousand Birds or So, and the Futures

March 21, 2023

Dr. Eric Wagner is a researcher at the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels at the University of Washington

Every spring, more than ten thousand rhinoceros auklets arrive at Destruction Island, off the outer coast of Washington, to breed. And for more than ten years, a small team of biologists has visited Destruction to monitor how the auklets are faring. The northeastern Pacific where Destruction Island sits is one of the most productive ecosystems on the planet, but this part of the sea-world has of late experienced a variety of shifts and upheavals. Are all these shifts and upheavals abnormal? Or are they the new normal? In this talk, biologist Eric Wagner will discuss the ongoing research on the rhinoceros auklets of Destruction Island (and beyond), and talk about what these furtive birds can show us about the larger world in which they try to make their living.

This webinar is co-sponsored by NOAA's Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and Feiro Marine Life Center.